# Preprocessors

A *preprocessor* is simply a bit of code which gets run immediately after the
book is loaded and before it gets rendered, allowing you to update and mutate
the book. Possible use cases are:

- Creating custom helpers like `\{{#include /path/to/file.md}}`
- Substituting in latex-style expressions (`$$ \frac{1}{3} $$`) with their
  mathjax equivalents

See [Configuring Preprocessors](../format/configuration/preprocessors.md) for more information about using preprocessors.

## Hooking Into MDBook

MDBook uses a fairly simple mechanism for discovering third party plugins.
A new table is added to `book.toml` (e.g. `[preprocessor.foo]` for the `foo`
preprocessor) and then `mdbook` will try to invoke the `mdbook-foo` program as
part of the build process.

Once the preprocessor has been defined and the build process starts, mdBook executes the command defined in the `preprocessor.foo.command` key twice.
The first time it runs the preprocessor to determine if it supports the given renderer.
mdBook passes two arguments to the process: the first argument is the string `supports` and the second argument is the renderer name.
The preprocessor should exit with a status code 0 if it supports the given renderer, or return a non-zero exit code if it does not.

If the preprocessor supports the renderer, then mdbook runs it a second time, passing JSON data into stdin.
The JSON consists of an array of `[context, book]` where `context` is the serialized object [`PreprocessorContext`] and `book` is a [`Book`] object containing the content of the book.

The preprocessor should return the JSON format of the [`Book`] object to stdout, with any modifications it wishes to perform.

The easiest way to get started is by creating your own implementation of the
`Preprocessor` trait (e.g. in `lib.rs`) and then creating a shell binary which
translates inputs to the correct `Preprocessor` method. For convenience, there
is [an example no-op preprocessor] in the `examples/` directory which can easily
be adapted for other preprocessors.

<details>
<summary>Example no-op preprocessor</summary>

```rust
// nop-preprocessors.rs

{{#include ../../../examples/nop-preprocessor.rs}}
```
</details>

## Hints For Implementing A Preprocessor

By pulling in `mdbook` as a library, preprocessors can have access to the
existing infrastructure for dealing with books.

For example, a custom preprocessor could use the
[`CmdPreprocessor::parse_input()`] function to deserialize the JSON written to
`stdin`. Then each chapter of the `Book` can be mutated in-place via
[`Book::for_each_mut()`], and then written to `stdout` with the `serde_json`
crate.

Chapters can be accessed either directly (by recursively iterating over
chapters) or via the `Book::for_each_mut()` convenience method.

The `chapter.content` is just a string which happens to be markdown. While it's
entirely possible to use regular expressions or do a manual find & replace,
you'll probably want to process the input into something more computer-friendly.
The [`pulldown-cmark`][pc] crate implements a production-quality event-based
Markdown parser, with the [`pulldown-cmark-to-cmark`][pctc] crate allowing you to
translate events back into markdown text.

The following code block shows how to remove all emphasis from markdown,
without accidentally breaking the document.

```rust
fn remove_emphasis(
    num_removed_items: &mut usize,
    chapter: &mut Chapter,
) -> Result<String> {
    let mut buf = String::with_capacity(chapter.content.len());

    let events = Parser::new(&chapter.content).filter(|e| {
        let should_keep = match *e {
            Event::Start(Tag::Emphasis)
            | Event::Start(Tag::Strong)
            | Event::End(Tag::Emphasis)
            | Event::End(Tag::Strong) => false,
            _ => true,
        };
        if !should_keep {
            *num_removed_items += 1;
        }
        should_keep
    });

    cmark(events, &mut buf, None).map(|_| buf).map_err(|err| {
        Error::from(format!("Markdown serialization failed: {}", err))
    })
}
```

For everything else, have a look [at the complete example][example].

## Implementing a preprocessor with a different language

The fact that mdBook utilizes stdin and stdout to communicate with the preprocessors makes it easy to implement them in a language other than Rust.
The following code shows how to implement a simple preprocessor in Python, which will modify the content of the first chapter.
The example below follows the configuration shown above with `preprocessor.foo.command` actually pointing to a Python script.

```python
import json
import sys


if __name__ == '__main__':
    if len(sys.argv) > 1: # we check if we received any argument
        if sys.argv[1] == "supports": 
            # then we are good to return an exit status code of 0, since the other argument will just be the renderer's name
            sys.exit(0)

    # load both the context and the book representations from stdin
    context, book = json.load(sys.stdin)
    # and now, we can just modify the content of the first chapter
    book['sections'][0]['Chapter']['content'] = '# Hello'
    # we are done with the book's modification, we can just print it to stdout, 
    print(json.dumps(book))
```



[preprocessor-docs]: https://docs.rs/mdbook/latest/mdbook/preprocess/trait.Preprocessor.html
[pc]: https://crates.io/crates/pulldown-cmark
[pctc]: https://crates.io/crates/pulldown-cmark-to-cmark
[example]: https://github.com/rust-lang/mdBook/blob/master/examples/nop-preprocessor.rs
[an example no-op preprocessor]: https://github.com/rust-lang/mdBook/blob/master/examples/nop-preprocessor.rs
[`CmdPreprocessor::parse_input()`]: https://docs.rs/mdbook/latest/mdbook/preprocess/trait.Preprocessor.html#method.parse_input
[`Book::for_each_mut()`]: https://docs.rs/mdbook/latest/mdbook/book/struct.Book.html#method.for_each_mut
[`PreprocessorContext`]: https://docs.rs/mdbook/latest/mdbook/preprocess/struct.PreprocessorContext.html
[`Book`]: https://docs.rs/mdbook/latest/mdbook/book/struct.Book.html